


dustland fairytale

by frozennightmare



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Cancer, I swear to god this has a happy ending, M/M, eventually, excessive cameos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-06-10 17:36:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6966637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozennightmare/pseuds/frozennightmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nevada, 1954. The tiny nuclear town of St. Thomas becomes a center of attention after a series of mysterious occurrences at a nearby army base. Steve Rogers is among those called in to handle the problem- and runs into a friend he hasn't seen since his childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. put out the fire on us

**Author's Note:**

> M rating doesn't apply till chapter four or so. might up it even further when we get there but we'll see.  
> tws for casual ableism and such in the dialouge, some occasional period-accurate homophobia  
> chapter soundtrack: hospital beds- cold war kids

_october, 1949_

He likes to think about the moon.

Ma bought him a telescope for his sixteenth (last?) birthday, one of the nice ones with extra lenses you can really only get from the base supply. On clear nights he could see as far as Jupiter. The orange clouds of it would swell in some forgotten storm, constantly battling each other. It was the closest he could ever get to the stars without ever leaving the ground.

Later, his hands would jitter too much from exhaustion for him to focus the telescope right. All he could find was the moon. It was appropriate; Bucky thought, running his good hand over his left arm, its surface pitted with craterous scars and mountainous ridges where the tumors grew up close under his skin.

(one night he woke up with a headache and a sickness and he couldn’t move his arm at all, it hurt too much, and he could barely scream because the noise in his head was too much-)

They left the telescope behind and he sat in a hospital bed. He didn’t expect to see it again.

The hospital was simple, at the least. At dawn a nurse would walk around and wake him to make sure he hadn’t died in the night. They’d change out his IV and look at him like he was a tragedy. There were a couple people in the beds next to him. None of them lasted. They were all smaller, younger, frailer, with tiny arms stuffed full of chemo needles, wasting away before they ever woke up to talk to him. In a way they were fortunate. They were too young to understand the magnitude of what was being taken from them. Too young to quantify the fact that his mother had promised to get him into the space program when he was eighteen, she knew the scientists in charge, but he wouldn’t live long enough to see it. Too young to quantify that he would never go to college or get married or meet his kids. He was getting off too early for this.

He wished death would stop taking its time with false hopes over _maybe the chemo will work this time_ and get it over with.

One morning he wakes up and he’s lost another chunk of hair in the night. “ _Fuck,”_  he sighs, and waits till the nurse leaves to throw it out so she won’t see and call the doctors about this Unsurprising Development.

“I thought this was the kid’s ward?” coughs the kid next to him. He’s new. And he talks. They don’t usually talk, just die in piece.

“I’ve earned the right to swear in the kid’s ward, buddy.” Bucky sighs. This other kid is small, frail, his face red and wet with sweat from a fever. No chemo needles. His parents must be important to get into this ward.

“What, so just because you’re dying you’re allowed to be an adult early?”

“At the fucking least, Jesus. Gotta use up my allotment faster.” He smiles, or at least tries to, but the kid's face just narrows further into that look that isn’t really a frown but isn’t approval either.  

“What’s killing you?” Bucky asks.

“Most people ask names first.”

“Fine, answer whatever fucking question you want to.”

“I’m Steve. TB. And I’m _not dying.”_

“Bucky. Bone cancer. And keep telling yourself that.”

Steve opens his mouth to say something else, find some other excuse to be sarcastic, and devolves into a coughing fit. Jesus, how young is this kid? He must be seventy pounds soaking wet. He doesn’t look like he’ll survive till noon, let alone the night.

“You’ve-” _cough_ “-got a rotten” _cough_ “-attitude.”

No, no, he takes it back. This kid’ll live to 95 just by fighting _everything in his path._

“Realism, kid. Find it.”

Steve shakes his head. He rolls over so he doesn’t have to look at him. “You’re no good.” he mutters into his pillow, and then he doesn’t say anything for a while.

The next round of nurses comes around. It’s a Monday, and because Monday’s weren’t shitty enough already, it’s the day they start the next round of chemo. He plays the game he always plays with himself. How long is he going to last before puking this time? He once made it a full three minutes. It was great.

This time it’s one and a half. He looks over to the kid next to him waiting for some snarky comment about how his _vomit_ isn’t sunny enough. The kid- sorry, _Steve-_ is still turned away from him, his shoulders moving enough to accommodate a pencil against paper. So he wanted to be a writer when he grew up. That’s cute. Probably a poet, with all the gorgeous bullshit he spews.

Bucky watches his mother and the ward doctor talking just outside the ward later that evening. He makes sure to stick to his cues; drops his eyes right when she goes to look at him, so they can both pretend he wasn’t watching her cry.

She comes in later.

“James,” she says, in that gentle Mother Voice that means Bad Things Broken Slowly, “Doctor Hodges has a new idea.”

“What now?” He tries to sound genuine.

“He’s worried about the cancer metastasizing- traveling to other parts of your skeleton through your bloodstream or maybe even you lungs. He thinks your arm might be beyond saving if we’re going to save your life.”

“So just chop it off.”

She is more than a little taken aback by how much this doesn’t bother him.

“Mom,” he says, and he takes her hand with his good one, “I’m already dying. In the scheme of things I’d give an- well, I’m already giving an arm, you better not come for my legs.”

His mother doesn’t seem to find this funny at all.

(Steve is quietly coughing-laughing-maybe dying? into his pillow. Nice.)

He drifts off before the sun even sets. Lame. He used to be able to stay up late enough to see the stars. When he wakes up someone’s left a small stack of sketches next to his table, doodles of a boy with a pockmarked left arm that is probably supposed to be him with a raincloud for a head.

So. Steve’s an artist, not a writer. Somehow even worse.

He rifles through progressions of his own face growing more thunderous, down to the last one with literal lightning bolts. Next to that one he’s drawn a sun with a smiley face shining on him from above. He doesn’t know a whole lot about art, but he knows the kid seems pretty good. On the last page, in the margins, is an unrelated sketch, some boy in his Sunday best with his hair slicked back. _Is that supposed to be me too?_ he wonders, but disposes of it. His hair is just a few stubborn clumps now. The boy in the drawing is far too whole to be him.

“Admiring my work?” Steve appears out of nowhere and perches on the edge of his bed.

“You mean admiring this horrible defamation of my character? And what are you doing out of bed?” Bucky holds up the thunderbolt drawing and Steve snickers.

“I told you,” he says, “I’m not dying-”

As he tries to deny it he breaks off into a heavy cough, pitching forward as his legs decide not to hold him up anymore. Bucky leans forward and pulls him so he can sit solidly on the end of his bed, ignoring the scream in his muscles as he does it.

Steve takes a solid minute to catch his breath. “Don’t tell my dad.” he says, and for the first time he actually sounds like the small frightened child he is.

“Of course not.” There’s a code of conduct between patients on the kids ward. If you manage to feel good enough to actually get out of bed and live for half a minute, everyone else looks away. The nurses don’t need to know about the life they’re stealing.

“Your dad work on base?” he asks.

Steve nods. “He’s a doctor.”

“Well, that’s ironic,” Bucky laughs. “Where you from, kid? Doesn’t sound like it’s this shithole.”

“Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn, huh. What a way from home.” He pauses. “Do me a favor, ok? If by some miracle you get better, go back. This place-”

Bucky looks up to check that the nurses are out of earshot.

“They say it’s safe. That the tests are too far away to hurt us. But I saw the data from after we bombed those poor kids in Hiroshima. My mom, she’s a scientist down at the base, I looked through her stuff, ok? And anyone we didn’t blow all to hell is still dying. It was five years ago and they’re still wasting off. I know what’s killing me, Stevie. This town, it’s poison. It’ll drag everyone down with it eventually. Get out before more than just a shitty cold tries to kill you.”

Steve looks down, away from him.

“Here,” Bucky says, feeling like he’s kicked a puppy. “I got a project for you.”

“What?”

“Draw me a new arm. I’m gonna need one.”

He’s half joking, but Steve props himself on his arms and stumbles up to get his sketchbook. Bucky leans back into his bed pillows. The chemo is making his stomach hurt again, fuck, it was yesterday too and it won’t let him go. Was it yesterday? He’s not sure of the time or how long he slept. It’s still some level of dark out but the curtains are drawn. Could have been twelve hours or two, he’s not sure.

Steve continues his dumbass idea of not staying put and sits back at his feet. Bucky draws his legs in closer to his body so he has a space. Not far, though; kid’s tiny.

“How old are you?” he asks, curious.

“Fourteen.”

“Jesus.” Bucky sighs. “What are you, seventy-five pounds? Eighty?”

“I know, kind of fucked up, right?”

Bucky’s jaw drops.

“Oh, shut up.” Steve sighs, and he’s too focused on the drawing to look him in the eyes. “I was just looking out for the little kids. Besides, you kind of had a point. About getting to live early.”

Bucky tries to lift his head enough to get a look at the work in progress, but Steve hisses and pulls the paper closer to his body. “Patience.”

“You’re real good, kid.”

“Thanks.” He keeps looking up at Bucky every few seconds.

“So is that what you wanted to do when you got older?” Bucky asks.

“What I _want_ to do. This or save the world.”

He laughs. “Yeah, priorities, am I right?”

“And what about you?” Steve has gone still and focused again.

“Oh, me? Gee.” He leans back with his arms behind his head; it’s an old gesture of his, but one arm hurts too much to move. He only uses his good arm and he’s sure he looks like an asshole. “I wanted to go to space. See the stars. Walk on the moon, someday, I’ve heard they might try that in a couple years.”

“Impressive.”

“Yeah, but I heard the Air Force doesn’t recruit cripples, so.” He shrugs with one shoulder, which feels very odd. “Even if I live, I’m fucked.”

“I’m sorry about your arm.”

“So what? If I live, woohoo. If it doesn’t work, well, I was gonna die anyways.” He tries to sell the conviction, but it doesn’t work as well as it did with his mother.

Steve stops, puts his pencil down. “What are you scared of?”

He’s almost crying. Fuck. “I’m just scared I’m gonna go under and I won’t come back up. It happens sometimes. They get the dosage wrong. Or I’ll bleed out on the operating table, or-something,”

He can’t believe he’s spilling this to a near stranger.

But Steve’s not, not really. They’re two doomed kids in a hospital. That alone makes them practically family. No one else has this life experience, because everyone else who did is dead.

“It’s ok to be scared, you know.” Steve says, going all quiet. “Just because we’re trying to pretend we get to grow up doesn’t mean we have to. Even adults are scared of that.”

He’s feeling tired again. Maybe it was only two hours after all. Maybe his body is just giving up already.

“Think I need to take a nap, kid. Don’t die on me in the night, ok?” he yawns.

“Same for you.” Steve replies.

“You gonna sit there all night?”

“I’ll move when I can.” he says, gritting his teeth. “Lungs aren’t cooperating right now.”

“Just stay, I don’t care. You can call the nurses to get my body or something.”

“Morose jerk.” Steve grumbles. He says something else, but Bucky doesn’t catch it. He’s already drifting off.

The next few days get hazy. The doctors come by and start taking blood, lots of it. They start marking things on his arm with soft china markers, taking probably the thousandth set of xrays. He wonders how much they’ll leave him, if he’ll even have a stump to menace small children with. Steve doesn’t wake up a whole lot; when he does, he’s drawing, maybe sometimes trying to cough his way through a conversation. His mother comes by once and tries to yell at the nurses for sticking an contagious patient next to her already weak son. Tries, but doesn’t get past Bucky, who is so happy to actually have a roommate he can hold a conversation with that he drops the _I’m feeling better cause I actually have a friend_ card.

He wakes up on Sunday night, T minus 2 days until the Removal, and can’t find the movement of breath in Steve’s shoulders.

“Stevie? Asshole, wake up!” he panics, and starts trying to rip the IV out of his arm so he can go find a nurse. He’s always been grateful that they don’t hang around at night, but now he needs one, _needs one right now,_ and they’re not _here-_

“Hhhwhat?” Steve mumbles, and Bucky remembers how to breathe again.

“Motherfucker, do that again and I will kill you myself.” he hisses.

“What? What’s going on?” Steve tries to prop himself up by his arm and doesn’t get very far, falling facefirst into the pillow again.

“I didn’t see you breathing. May have panicked a bit.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Steve’s voice is muffled by the pillow.

“Do you think you can get up?” Bucky asks. Steve shakes his head.

“Ok, fuck it.” Bucky sighs. He half-vaults himself out of bed using his good arm. It’s remarkable, even in his skinny, useless state, the muscle that’s already built up on it. Maybe he will get used to it.

He leans his body weight against the IV pole for support and stumbles around to Steve’s bedrail, grabbing on to it and hauling. It’s heavy, but the actual bed is heavier than the kid on it, and the weight doesn’t bother him much.

“What’cha doing?” Steve asks.

“I can’t see you breathing if you’re halfway across the room, you dick.”

“Oh.” he says. “Ok.” and then he falls back asleep, but with their beds nearly sandwiched together Bucky can see his chest rise and fall with him this time. He doesn’t sleep. He won’t let himself, after the earlier fiasco. He does, however, permit himself split-second naps, when he can’t keep his eyes open any longer and his head jerks down and he isn’t actually sure how long he drifts off for. Those are ok. He can see Steve breathing whenever he wakes up.

The sun rises and it’s a Monday. A godforsaken Monday. Will they let him go this time, though, since he’s losing the thing tommorow?

The nurse shows up with her cart of IV bags. Apparently not. _Fuck._

“Why are you bothering? Aren’t you cutting it off anyways?” Steve asks the question for him. Bucky is too busy trying to breathe and calm his nerves. He didn’t even notice the stick wake up, but he must have been for at least a while; he’s actually sitting up with his sketchbook. Fuck. Maybe he fell asleep by accident again.

“We don’t think the tumor has metastasized, but on the off chance it has we want to make sure any cancer in your blood is destroyed. One last time, Barnes.”

“It had better damn well be.” he hisses as she changes the IV’s out. The nurse doesn’t react, just throws the puke bucket in the direction of his chest. Steve sets down his notebook and stares up at her with murder in his eyes.

“They always this mean?” he asks as she walks away.

“They’re just tired of me- oh, _fuck.”_ Thirty seconds. Thirty goddamn seconds. That’s as far as he makes it until his stomach turns over and he’s scrambling for the bucket. He phases out of the universe for a second on this one, tears running down his face involuntarily, a scream stuck somewhere in his throat. Steve scrambles across the gap in their beds by his elbows. He wraps his skinny little arm around his back, his hand stroking the top ridges of his spine. It’s oddly comforting, reminds of when he got a stomach bug when he was nine and his mother stayed up all night with him even though she couldn’t do anything.

 _That’s pretty goddamn queer, Rogers,_ Bucky thinks, but then again he’s the one who pushed their beds together last night, so he really shouldn’t talk. His shoulders finally stop heaving and Steve lets go, returning to his spot before the nurse wanders back.

“Thanks.” he scratches, his throat hoarse. Steve keeps looking at him with this incredibly worried expression. “You’re feeling better.” he says, trying to change the subject. Just since last night his color has improved by multiple shades.

Steve nods, pursing his lips. “Antibiotics seem to finally be working.”

Bucky tilts his head back and laughs, even if it hurts to do it. “You were right. You’re gonna be the one person who gets out of here.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Buck.” Steve says. But he’s smiling. Mission accomplished. “But yeah. Dad’s thinking maybe we can go home on Wednesday if I keep getting better.”

“That’s great.” Bucky tries to sound happier, because _holy shit this tiny asshole made it,_ but all he can think about is how he’ll be kept under til Thursday.

“Do you want me to hang around?” Steve asks. Holy shit. It’s like he can read his mind.

“What? No. You need to get out of this town, I already told you-”

“No, I’ll stay. Just until you wake up.” And there he goes, a rock that can’t be moved. “Somebody’s gotta tell you I survived, right?”

“Yeah. And not a nurse that’ll lie to me.”

He tries so hard to stay awake on what could potentially be his last day on earth, to the point where he’s pinching his bad arm to stay awake and hissing at the shockwaves of pain it sends through his remaining nerves. It’s still light out. He can’t fucking believe this.

“It’s ok to sleep, Buck.” Steve says.

“Don’t want to.” Bucky groans.

“I’ll wake you up when the nurse leaves for the night.”

“Ok, fine,” he huffs, and closes his eyes for half a second. Behold, gone.

Steve wakes him up long into the night, just like he promised. He crawls over the gap again and holds onto him, even when he starts crying like a little girl.

“I’m scared.” Bucky says.

“I know.” Steve says, and doesn’t let go.

He falls asleep like that, his head pressed against Steve’s shoulder, completely forgetting the shithole they’ll be in if the nurse walks in. He doesn’t try to fight it this time.

When morning comes Steve has moved back to his own bed, knocked out so hard Bucky suspects he stayed up all night. The nurses come for him. They stick needles in his arm and wheel him away and the IV feels like ice this time, a glacier rolling over him until he can’t keep his eyes open no matter how hard he fights it. He wants to scream, but he can’t. His mouth won’t even work.

Darkness.

Darkness for a long, long time.

He wakes up. Steve is asleep in the chair next to his bed. He’s actually wearing a button-up, his hair kind of combed, his face as filled out as an eighty-pound teenager can be. What day is it? What time is it? He has no fucking clue. Kid’s obviously feeling better.

Bucky tries to prop himself up enough to sit up. And it’s weird. It feels the same. Feels like he still is a mostly-whole human being, like there’s still something in his left socket, but he goes to put it out to brace himself and it’s not _there-_

He falls forward, cursing through his teeth. Steve jolts awake at the sound.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks. What the fuck. His arm _hurts._ It’s not even there anymore and it feels like it got stabbed by sixteen separate needles.

“I promised.” he says.

“What- what even day is it?”

“Friday. My dad’s about to kill me.”

“Oh my god.” Bucky buries his face in his hand. “Oh my god, go home-”

“I promised, you asshole. See? Still here. Doing just fine. Better than you, actually. Anyways, I have something for you.” He reaches into the bag at his feet and pulls out a familiar black notebook. “I mean, it’s practically all you anyways. Can’t hold on to it. People will ask questions.” 

“Christ.” Bucky breathes. He nestles it between his knees and starts trying how to figure out how to turn pages with one hand. Steve hasn’t just drawn him a single new arm; he’s filled the pages with what must be a hundred different ideas, gorgeous geometric prosthetics that serve no purpose whatsoever and near-human copies with soft flowers drawn on to them. Near the back are a couple of sketches that have nothing to do with his assignment at all. They’re of him, he assumes, but they’re softer, a boy with a bare-backed hospital gown and a craterous arm, holding his IV tube like it’s a scepter, Jupiter floating above him like a crown.

He closes the book and looks up. Off past the doors, he can see a small man standing expectantly. Rogers senior, he assumes.

“You going back to Brooklyn?” he asks.

“Yeah. Dad thinks the dust here is bad for me.”

“Good. Get out of here.” He pauses, then opens the book and tears out the one empty page. He fumbles around on the bedside table for a pen and tries to coax his fingers into letters.

“I figure if you can draw so pretty, you can write me a goddamn letter once in a while.” he says. “Or at least I’ll try until I drop. You might have to excuse my handwriting though. I’m left handed- or I was.”

Steve smiles and very carefully folds up the paper, depositing it into his bag. “I guess I can put up with your mopeyness if I don’t have to see your face.”

Then he turns and walks towards the far doors.


	2. out where the dreams all hide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, so proper notes now that we're starting plot: 
> 
> chapter playlist: [dustland fairytale-the killers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=froxEDdnouc)
> 
> HUGE thanks to my betas [dallon](bloodravenclaw.tumblr.com) and [alsy](utterly-c0nfuzzled.tumblr.com) for putting up with my screaming while i try to write this at four in the morning. love these guys.  
> also holy hell? i wandered into groupchat one night with outfit designs and alsy dropped [this](http://utterly-c0nfuzzled.tumblr.com/post/144991538066/my-friend-kat-has-been-writing-a-50s-stucky-au-and) on me. i don't deserve these people. give them fruit baskets.

_may, 1954_

If there’s a hell, Bucky is pretty sure it’s Nevada in the summertime.

He’s long given up on trying to fight it. He’s jury-rigged every fan he could pull out of the dumpster behind the diner, filled up the icebox and stuck it in front of the biggest one he had, and it’s still hotter than sin out here. It’s a waste of ice, honestly. He could be using it for better things, like actually refrigerating his food instead of living off canned beans all summer. But what the hell. He’s twenty-one and (mostly) lives alone. Only God can judge him for that.

Ignoring the fact that the simultaneous fracture of two of his fan belts may be his holy punishment.

The shop is fucking cooking him, slowly. Ten more minutes in here and he’s gonna be a slow-roasted Buck. It’s hot enough outside. It’s a fucking oven in here where he’s ass-deep in dissasembled Jeep.

He grabs onto the underside of the front bumper and hauls himself out from under the car. There’s a slight breeze going through the open portion of the shop from where he left the front door wide open, and he lies in it for a second.

Bucky sits up, leaning on his arm, and stares over at the icebox. Completely melted. Oh, come the fuck on. He’d dump the whole thing over his head if he didn’t think it’d be a complete waste of water.

He settles instead for getting up and walking further into the front of the shop to get that little bit of breeze. The general is going to have to wait another day on this Jeep. He’s got errands to run, his pantry is getting low, he needs to go by the post- fuck, he really needs to check his mail. He’s been too busy to get down there for almost a week now. Steve is going to kill him. He’d been going on about some big surprise in his last letter. And yeah, the guy lives in Brooklyn and can’t physically kill him for putting it off, but he can feel the judgment coming all the way from the East Coast.

Bucky starts his check around the shop so he can lock up for the rest of the afternoon. It will perpetually be a mess in here- one arm and his own general laziness will contribute to that —  but he’ll at least make an effort if he won’t be back for a few hours. He sweeps the screws and assorted electrical parts off the front counter into a bucket he’s got hidden just behind the wood. He’ll sort through that later, when his arm has had a good minute to work out the soreness lying in it. He takes the water bucket out back, where one of the neighborhood cats will be able to get to it.

This place hasn’t changed a whole lot in the three years since he’s bought it. The previous owner, a retired army mechanic, had given him a reduction in the price based off the “general fucked-up status, son; I’m sorry she hasn’t been properly cleaned in nearly twenty years.” At the time he’d promised himself he’d get it cleaned, commandeer his sisters in the name of _chore day_ or something, but it had never happened. There was still a picture of a family that wasn’t his hanging on the wall in the back room, choked in dust from twenty years of sitting there untouched.

He also suspected the discount had been out of pity, but what the hell, he’d take it.

Bucky locks up his shop and flips the OPEN sign over. There’s a decent amount of people out for a Wednesday afternoon. The cashier at the general store next door waves to him as he walks past, paying attention for half a second before they go back to the line. The newsstand outside it is swarmed with kids; little hands pawing at the metal racks like bees swarming on flowers. They spill over the sidewalk, into the street, spending their lunch break pursuing the latest. He nearly trips over a little girl sitting on the curb as he tries to walk past.

“Can’t escape, can we?” A tall blond pulls himself out of the swarm- Clint Barton, former army, Bucky’s deaf-as-hell next door neighbor.

“No, we can’t.” Bucky grins. He stops in the street and turns so Clint can get a good enough look at his face to read his lips. “What the hell are they so excited about?”

“New Captain America. Check this out.” He hands Bucky a copy of the comic he swiped off before the kids got to it. Bucky laughs at the cover. _Captain America Sends Stalin to Siberia!_

“Funny. But inaccurate.” He hands the comic back to Clint.

“Yeah, well, I doubt a bunch of five year olds would enjoy reality. Put a couple of 50 megaton nukes in spandex. Kids love it! So much better than a superhero.” He fake salutes at Bucky. “You gonna be around town today?”

“I got some errands to run, yeah. See you later.”

————

“So who is this guy? Just an old pal of yours?” Sam asks. He’s shed as much of his uniform as he can while staying decent, hat and suit coat bundled under his arm. Steve, meanwhile, seems unbothered by the heat as they walk down the middle of the road.

“Met him when my dad was stationed here a few years ago.” Steve replies.

Sam walks out in front of him, pointing in his general direction with exaggerated anger. “Mhmm. See, I’m remembering the part of this story where you told me you only lived in Nevada for two months. And he’s still important enough to risk being late to our meeting with Colonel Ross? You do realize we have this weekend off. That’s three days, Steve.”

Steve pushes him aside gently and keeps walking. “We’ve been writing each other a bit. Listen, it’s just been a while, ok? Wanted to surprise him. You don’t have to come with me.”

“And yet here I am.” Sam shakes his head. “You sure he’s even gonna recognize you? You spent half your life as a tiny lapdog and now you look like somebody’s Doberman.”

“Nah, not really. But I bet I can pick him out of a crowd.”

That means something, he’s sure of it, but Steve’s talking so cryptically he’s not really sure what. But he’s not surprised. He’s known the guy for six months, since Brooklyn, and almost every question he’s ever asked him is followed by a not-answer.

_What’s your family like?_

_Just my dad. Passed away about a year ago._ he says, and then keeps working like he hadn’t dropped that bomb.

_So confirm to me that I’m your only friend cause that’s pathetic, Rogers._

_You’re not, Sam. I have other friends._ he says, and doesn’t elaborate.

They pass the post office and Steve stops suddenly, straightening his spine and bouncing up on his toes like he’s trying to look over someone. He doesn’t say anything to Sam but starts walking towards it instead.

“You know I technically outrank you, right?” Sam yells after him, like he’s not going to follow. But he is, because he has apparently nothing else to be doing now than following this asshole everywhere.

Steve sneaks up behind this guy who may or may not be homeless. He’s covered in car grease, his hair hanging almost to his shoulders, three days worth of scruff on his face. Muscular, probably a mechanic or similar, and missing his left arm right below the shoulder. So this is what Steve meant by being able to recognize him.

The guy is rifling through his box, intent on something. “Oh, what the fuck.” he grumbles through his teeth. “Where is it.”

“Looking for something?” Steve asks, like an inch behind him. Sam narrows his eyes, trying to make sure he’s actually watching Captain Fucking America, supposed national hero, try to surprise some hobo like he’s a fourteen year old with a crush. The other guy doesn’t jump, just stops moving with a smile.

“You motherfucker.” he says. Then he looks up, his eyes going slightly unfocused, mouth hanging wide.  “Ok, what the fuck. Who are you and what did you do with Steve Rogers?”

Steve laughs, a pure, unfiltered sound. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“Yeah. No. I need more than ‘it’s kind of a long story.’ What the fuck did you do to yourself?”

This guy belongs in the army, aside from the whole amputee thing. He’s got the mouth of a sergeant already.

“Volunteered to be a guinea pig. It worked pretty well. What’d you do to your hair?” Steve shoves his hands into his uniform pockets. His friend stares back at him with a look between indignation and playfulness.

“If you haven’t noticed, asshole, I have one arm. Some things got sacrificed.” He says all this as he rolls his wrist against his side to shimmy a hair tie off it, pulling the mop into a ponytail with a one-handed swoop.

Sam finally leans into the conversation. “How do you do that?” he asks.

“Talent,” the other guy huffs. “I’m Bucky. And you are?”

“Sam Wilson. Air Force.”

Bucky makes a half-hearted attempt at a salute, then proceeds to prod Steve in the chest. “Next time you decided to get taller than me, warn me first. This is unfair, Rogers.”

_Seriously._ Sam thinks. _“We’ve been writing each other a bit?” I think that’s an understatement._ They certainly seem close. How close, well, that goes in the Rogers file of “not sharing details.”

“So what are you doing out here?” Bucky asks, incredulous. “Colonel got you saving babies from nuclear accidents? Leaping buildings with a single bound? Come on, he’s got to be doing something interesting with that. You look like some sort of _superhero_ now.”

He bites down on the word, like it’s a taunt of some sort.

It soars straight over Steve’s head. He stares at his feet. “Not exactly.”

“It’s classified.” Sam butts in, rescuing him. “My op too, unfortunately. So if you want in, you better get out of your civvies and get up to base. “

“Well, fuck.” Bucky says, disappointed, then brushes it off. “You down here permanently or just until they find a foreign country to ship you to?”

“Research deployment. Permanent until Colonel Ross changes his mind.” Steve answers. He sounds vaguely unhappy about this.

“And research is classified? I mean, not like they’re not doing some weird shit out there. Think we don’t notice their spy planes.”

Steve and Sam share a look. “No one’s supposed to know about that.”

“And I’m not blind. I do have half an idea what I’m looking at. Don’t worry. There’s like ten people in town who aren’t your people. I’m pretty sure half of them don’t know how to read. They keep going on about aliens or some bullshit.” Bucky says.

“Listen, this conversation is fascinating, but we do need to get going. Colonel Ross-” Sam elbows Steve in the side.

“-Is gonna have your head, I know, I know. Buck-”

“I gotta get back to work anyways, don’t worry.” Bucky replies. “Listen, if the classified section wants a cup of coffee when they get off shift tonight, I have a place. I’ll pay or whatever.”

Sam scoffs. “Can’t wait to see what Boomfuck Nowhere considers high cuisine.”

‘’Hey,” Bucky says, sounding slightly offended, “it may be a hole in the ground, but it’s _my_ hole in the ground, ok? See you guys later.”

With that, he turns around and walks out of the post office and back down the main road. Steve is still smiling, watching him as he walks off. Sam almost says something. Almost.

—————-

_december, 1949_

_stevie,_

_sorry it took me so long to get back to you. (did you write that on the train back? i’m impressed.) i’ve been out of it for a while. the stump got infected and they had to trim it a little bit and then my mom flipped her shit over me being in the hospital for another month. but i swear to god i’m ok. like, better than ok. the doctor keeps talking about remission. he thinks it worked and the cancer’s gone. and i can actually get out of bed on a good day. i’m like the first kid to leave all year. you’re my good luck charm or something._

_i want to hear about brooklyn. like, not just whatever you do all day, although i’d take that too. tell me what your street is like. tell me about your crazy neighbors and that weird kid at school. you’re probably the weird kid, aren’t you? hey, i still spend eighty percent of my day in bed. give me somewhere to pretend to be because nevada is pretty boring. you can only see sand so many ways._

_i’m sorry my handwriting is so bad, captain perfection. this may have taken me a couple passes to do. i’m working on it._

—————————-

Bucky’s “spot” is a hole in the wall. More than that, because St. Thomas itself is one accumulated hole on its own. It’s a hole on the surface of a hole, a mousehole in a sunken roof. By Bucky’s own word, the diner itself has only been there a few years. It still feels like an ancient installment here. The neon lights on the roof are barely working, flickering the word DIN pathetically into the lowlight.

Steve parks the Jeep outside. He’s almost scared to leave it. He might come back and find the thing aged seventy years; who knows with a place like this.

“What a refined friend you have.” Sam remarks, noting the crack in the glass on the door.

“In his defense, did you see anything better?” Steve pushes it open while he’s standing there analyzing.

“I just can’t figure out why this place is even really here. Who decided to put a town in the middle of the Mojave?” Nobody seems to notice them walk in, or if they do, they don’t care. A single waitress is standing by the far counter watching tv, an older woman who smells so strongly of Camels he can feel it halfway across the room.

“It was bigger back in 40’s. All the scientists working on Manhattan and their families were here. They’ve mostly grown up and left or died. Those that are left work at the base or provide the basics to keep this place running. Hey, at least we have somewhere to go that’s not the base.” Steve says. He’s spotted Bucky sitting in a booth and is only half paying attention to Sam.

“You shit-talking my hole?” Bucky asks. He’s picked a corner farther away from the center of the diner.

“Just wondering why anyone lives here.” Sam retorts. “Especially you. You don’t even work at the base.”

“You drove in, right? Did you see another town for a hundred miles? It’s here or Vegas, and Vegas is expensive. Besides, apparently the mechanic on base is shit. I get good business.” Bucky kicks back in his seat, claiming the entire side of the booth for himself. Sam squeezes in reluctantly next to Steve.

“Family?” he asks.

“Two little sisters. It’s decent money, so I hang around. Plus the gossip’s good.” Bucky smirks at this, and Sam can’t tell if he’s joking. He grabs a napkin from the pile on the table and starts balling it in his fist, eyes scanning the diner for someone. “Fix a general’s car, hear about a recon flight or a new nuclear test...I mean, it never gets boring.”

He grips the balled-up napkin and tosses it at the other waitress in the diner, a short redhead who neither of them noticed on their way in. She reaches out and catches it without even turning around.  “You’ve got a shitty arm, Barnes.” she says.

“You’ve got a shitty job, Nat, why don’t you actually do it?”

The woman dismounts her barstool as slow as humanly possible, wearing this expression of murder as she walks over to them. “I’ve been here since eight am.” she says, hitting Bucky over the head with her notepad. “Let me sit on my ass for a minute. I already know what you want.”

Steve sits back in the booth with a small smile. Bucky’s mentioned this girl a few times in his letters- Natalie Rushman, belligerent waitress, _my only other friend round here, she’s a pain in the ass but she keeps me in line while you’re not around to do it._

“Gentlemen.” She nods in Steve and Sam’s direction. “I’ll go get your damn coffee, _Bucky Boy._ “

“She doesn’t like us, does she?” Sam observes.

“Come back out of uniform and she might change her tune.” Bucky says. He stares off across the room. The TV behind the counter is on, the sound turned down too low for him to hear. The other waitress is watching the proceedings in a trance. He can’t blame her. America’s Favorite Courtroom Drama has made for some pretty good television. It’s almost as good as the bible stories they used to put up on Sunday mornings. Judge McCarthy, presiding over all good and evil alike, doling out punishment to the unworthy Reds.

Steve is watching over his shoulder, his hand folded up against his chin, laser-focused. It’s impossible to read past the stone set of his face.

“Want me to ask her to change the channel? We actually get a decent signal out here. Maybe if we’re lucky we can catch a rerun of Captain America.” Bucky teases.

Steve’s focus breaks for a second. He ducks his head, embarrassed. “Ah great, you did the math.”

Bucky looks off and shakes his head with a cautious grin. “Come on, Cap, you’re practically a hero around here. Kids love you. And it wasn’t hard to figure out, ok? Hannah just turned seven, she loves that show, and every Friday night I keep thinking, hey that looks like Stevie. But nah, it can’t be.”

Steve buries his face in his hands. “Jesus H. Christ.”

“Ooh, blasphemy from Captain America? Come on, this is a pretty sweet gig you’ve landed yourself! Look at you! I thought they’d put Brando in a spangly suit or something, but nah, it’s tiny little Rogers, TV star. Teaching America the best ways to beat the Reds. Most army guys would kill for a safe position like that.” Bucky is loving this conversation. Mostly because of the fact that a hundred extra pounds has not seemed to change the fact that Steve blushes really easily.

“It’s not what I want to be doing, and you know it,” Steve whispers, even though the diner is nearly empty.

“And I’m not doing what I want to either, so suck it up.” says Sam. Nat reappears with four cups of coffee. She places a hand on Bucky’s sprawled kneecap, pushing him into a normal seating position with more force than her small frame should contain. He tries to say something, but she sticks a hand right over his mouth without making eye contact.

“You made me get up. This is my seat now.” she grumbles.

He peels her hand off, and she wipes it very visibly on a napkin.  Sam snickers.

“So who’s a dirty commie tonight?” she asks, staring over at the tv. “Mrs. Eisenhower?”

“Some army guy, I think,” replies Bucky.

“Descriptive.” Nat takes a long drink out of her cup, tapping her fingers against the table.

She grimaces and drains the rest of her coffee in a single chug, setting the cup down upside down in the dent in the table. “How long are you boys in town?” she asks Steve.

“We’re stationed here for the time being, ma’am.” Steve replies.

“Ma’am? I like this one, Barnes, where’d you dredge him out of? It’s not your usual dumpster.” She starts undoing her curls, tossing bobby pins into the dent in the table and  letting her hair hang long over her shoulders.

“Nah, this one came discount at the thrift shop.” Bucky serves back.  “A little weak on the inside, but he’ll hold up.”

Sam starts cackling on this one.

Bucky frowns. Captain Serious seems not to have even noticed the joke, but his attention is still held fast by the TV.

Nat taps his thigh with her other hand, leans over so her mouth is practically touching his ear. “Jesus. They gonna stop sending guys in? What war is going on here?”

“No shit.” he whispers back. She kicks his foot. He laughs like she was quietly shit-talking the boys again. Neither of them seem to notice the difference. They’ve developed a code —  or, more accurately, Natalie developed it — for talking about iffy subjects in plain sight. On a base like this, say the wrong thing, the world might never see you again. It wasn’t a lesson he’d had to teach Natalie when she moved here three years ago; it was just one she instinctually already knew. Lord only knew why.

She seemed to have her own suspicions about him, to be fair. There had been multiple times when she’d appeared by his table shoving him in the direction of an officer in town for the weekend. _You’re sad and lonely, Barnes, I’m getting sick of looking at you. Go make friends._ If it was a coincidence that she was responsible for him getting laid, well, she had some pretty fucking impressive magic powers of coincidence.

So they had some rules. Which mostly involved _don’t talk about each other’s secrets._ And it worked.

“You know these guys pretty well?” she asks, leaning up to his ear again.

“One of them, yeah.” he answers.

“Think he’ll spill anything if you ask?”

Bucky nods, not making eye contact with her.

“Good. I’d like details.”

Bucky notices Sam starting to look at them and quickly changes the conversation. “Steve, you trying to freeze your face that way?”

It takes Steve a second to notice he’s even being spoken to. “Huh? Sorry.” He rims his fingers around his coffee cup without ever actually picking it up. “Got distracted.”

“Tired, are we? Prancing around set wearing you out?”

Steve exhales and deadlocks Bucky in a stare. “Go ahead, go in for me tomorrow. You can sit in a chair for four hours while they redo the set again and some scriptwriter tells you to break down the door with more feeling this time. Feeling. Like you can add feeling to breaking up a piece of wood.”

“Ah.” Bucky says.

He knows where this conversation will end up, and it involves angry Steve and a rant he can’t have in public.

Well, he’s pretty sure. Steve’s army now, which he neglected to mention. He’s based here, which he also neglected to mention. Bucky’s not entirely sure what to make of the whole situation. It might be partially his fault. He’d gotten busy lately, been falling off on letters. He’d sent maybe two in the last six months. But Rebecca had been struggling with math in school and he’d had a few short weeks at work- he’d had reasons, for sure. Shit happened. But he’d written about that when he had time. Steve hadn’t mentioned any of this.

He’s starting to wonder why.

The table has gone quiet. Natalie stares around at them, like she’s looking for more entertainment, but gets nothing. She exhales and stands up.

“Well, this has been fun.” she announces. “But it’s ten o’clock, which means I’m officially off for the night. So would you gentlemen kindly fuck off? I’d like to go home.”

——————

_Mission Report: January 25th, 1950_

_Operative 845, codename Black Widow, assigned to execute dissenter Mikhail Servenzky on mission to Poland. Please note this is the operative’s first solo mission. Operative entered Servenzky’s home at 15:42 and completed the assassination. Operative disposed of the body in Servenzky’s backyard. Mission successful._

—————

_Rule One: Do not allow yourself to be noticed. You can always achieve more undercover than you can in plain sight._

Natasha zips up her jacket in the back room of the diner. Despite the blistering heat earlier, the desert cools off fast at night. As soon as the sun dips it goes from a fireblast to a cool winter evening.

She checks the fit of it around her, straightening her sleeves, pulling the frame of it closer so the knives in the lining don’t poke her through the fabric.

“You goin’ home, sweetheart?” Fiona yells around a cigarette from the front of the diner. They’re closed, but Fiona doesn’t have a TV in her trailer. She’ll stay here until the trials are over for the night.

“Yeah, see you in the morning.” Nat calls back. She opens the door and steps out into the night. It’s darker out here than it ever was in Moscow. St. Thomas has a handful of shops on the main road, and most turn their lights off by the time the sun sets. She can see the stars for miles.

Natasha lives three miles off the main road, in an apartment complex near some of the off-base officer housing. She doesn’t have quite enough money for a car, so every night she walks a half an hour to get home.

She once walked thirty miles between outposts in Latvia. This she can handle.

“Hey, honey.” someone calls out from the alleyway. A drunk. Nobody.

_Rule Two: If you are sighted, do not instantly engage. Find out what the other person knows. Keep cover at all possible junctions._

She ignores him, grabs her purse a little tighter, walks a little faster.

“Honey, you got anything for me?” She can hear him shuffle to his feet, fall into step behind her. She thinks about the knives in her jacket. No, no, Natasha, you can't stab him. He probably deserves it, but it’d draw too much attention. Even if they could never definitively link it back to her.

Natasha turns around. She starts analyzing the ground. He’s still in uniform. Army guy. But his chest is fairly bare- private, and a new one. Probably recently on assignment. Middling muscle level for an army guy, five inches taller than her. There’s no one close enough to hear her call for help- or to watch her commit a murder, if necessary. The alleyway leads out to the main road if you go far enough but all the shop owners have long gone home. A dumpster, a stack of disposed food storage boxes. The bricks on the wall will cause decent head trauma if she throws him hard enough.

“Not tonight, soldier.” she says, playing with her voice to sound as jovial as possible. “Why don’t you go home?”

“Now, sweetheart-” he says, grabbing her shoulder tightly. She can smell the alcohol on his breath from here.

_Rule Three: If forced to engage, be careful. Use minimum force required. Minimize your blood splatters. Clean up after yourself. Use only practical weaponry._

“I wish you hadn’t done that.” she says with a smile, and swings her elbow straight into his gut. He stumbles backward, coughing violently. Natasha grabs the hard edge of her purse with her other hand, bringing it down hard onto the left side of his face. It sends him flying again, and his head connects with the brick wall as he trips. Perfect execution.

She leans over and checks his pulse. Still breathing, no bleeding to the scalp. He’ll have a concussion, but he’ll live. It’s easier on her conscious if she pretends he lives.

A jeep roars down the main road. Army make from the sound of the engine. _Fuck._ Time to go.

It takes her fifteen minutes to run the rest of the way back. It should only take ten. She’s slipping.

By the time she gets to her apartment complex her lungs are burning.

She dumps her stuff in a pile by the door and runs back to the bathroom. _Take a breath._ Find air in the stale environment. _Debrief._ Three breaths in, two out, allow yourself to breathe. _Defrost._ She was wearing gloves but she still turns on the water and tries to wash off her hands anyways.

Natasha looks up at the mirror.

“I’m from Evansvalle, Illinois.” she tries. There’s too much slur on the v in _Evansville._ Try again.

“Evansville.” she repeats into the mirror. It sounds odd around her tongue.

She tries again with a different word.

“Nataahlia. _Fuck._ Nataali-Natalee. Nat.”

You’re phasing out, Romanov. Keep your cover. Keep in control.

“Vushman. Rushman. _Fuck_.” Natasha perches on the back of the toilet. She starts over, trying the basics of her story. “Just looking for a change of scenery.”

(She’s talking to Bucky, who wanders into the diner at ten pm. Fiona just rolls her eyes, _this one again. Natalie, handle him._ and he narrows his expression at her with a _you’re new._ This floppy-haired kid must be a regular. _What brings you here?_

_Just looking for a change of scenery._

_Well, your priorities are fucked._

The kid kicks back in his seat and pulls a tattered copy of _I, Robot_ out of his inside jacket pocket.

_Where you from,_ he asks without looking up.)

“Evansville.” she tries into the mirror again.

_(Interesting._ he says, in a voice that means the exact opposite of his words.)

She could do this. She’d been telling her lies for so many years she almost starts to believe them herself. Natasha’s been dead for almost three years. Natalie’s been doing a pretty good job in her place.

——————

_march, 1950_

_Colonel Ross, if someone around here actually did their jobs, we wouldn’t be having this problem. We need to watch our outputs more carefully. I’ve had all sorts of reports of increased leukemia rates in the population in St. Thomas. How are we allowing this to continue? I have multiple doctors willing to sign statements. Multiples! If we’re not careful- if this gets out- they could shut us down. Compromise the mission. We need to do something._

_-E. Fairhope_

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> if it reassures anyone who knows my track record with wips, i've already committed 16k to this at time of posting. so that's good.


End file.
